Day 87 to 93 – Rest days in Calgary

We’ve had a wonderful stay in Calgary so far. We had an amazing time at Dave and Tracy’s and they fed us so much food it was incredible – we had dinner, breakfast, and lunch before leaving their house! We are now with my sister and will be for the rest of our time in Calgary. We’ll be seeing friends and relatives in the next few days as well, and will also make a visit to Drumheller just outside of Calgary for some viewing of Dinosaur bones (a stop we wanted to make for our trip).

In the prairies it has been very cold at night, and even during some days, and we are glad to be inside for a little while. People have been saying it’s been a very cold summer here. We can’t believe how much warmer it is in the East Coast right now! A heat wave would be nice but it doesn’t look like one is coming anytime soon..  it looks pretty cold in the mountains. but Kelowna is still a nice 20 degrees so at least we’ve got some warmer weather to look forward to as we cycle further west.

We are a little behind on our blog but we should be all caught up in the next few days!

Update:

Sept 11 – On our second day in Calgary, and first night with my sister and Ken, we went to a sushi restaurant in Calgary where we met my sister’s friends. We had great food and her friend’s even picked up our tab!

Sept 12 – The next day we toured the local market with my sister and Ken. There was so many fresh fruit it was incredible. It made us very excited to bike through the Okanagan Valley in the fall. The great part about the market was they had samples for you to try before you bought the fruit, great idea!

Sept 13 – The following day we visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller with my sister and Ken. This museum was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. It is incredible to view real and spectacular fossils of the ancient creatures that used to live on the planet. Many found just outside the museum. Unbelievable. There are thousands of fossils just beneath our feet everywhere near the area. Words can not describe this museum, it is a must see. They have done a fantastic job of showcasing some of the best dinosaur fossils in Canada, and probably the world. There were tourists from all over the world at the museum based on the languages that we had heard people speaking. Afterwards we visited the “World’s Largest Dinosaur” which happens to also be the largest town icon/road side attraction in the world.

Sept 14 – The weather was not so great the next day so we stayed indoors at my sister’s. For dinner we went to Katherine’s aunt’s place, and were treated to a wonderful evening!  Raoulf cooked us an amazing 3-course pasta dinner, and we also had a great time chatting to Katherine’s cousin Laurel.

Sept 15 – Today Matthew picked us up in the morning and took us out to Banff for the day. We contemplated taking the Gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain but because of the likelyhood of cloud cover we decided we’ll save it for another time. We walked around town and ended the day at the Banff Hot Springs. As we have found before, the hot springs was quite a social place and I chatted with a couple about the area and the west coast. Afterwards Matthew took us around the University of Calgary for a quick tour!

Sept 16 – Katherine and I visited Dinosaur Provincial Park. We did some hiking during the day and in the evening camped with Matthew. One of the exhibits we saw was an actual dinosaur fossil find that they had kept in the original location it was found but was enclosed in a building. It was really incredible to see it exactly where it was found and in its original state.

Sept 17 – It started to rain later in the morning but we managed to pack up our tents before  the rain. In the afternoon we took the tour to visit the back areas of the park that are only accessible with a guide. Usually the climate around the area is very dry but they had an unusually wet summer. We had a great guide and they modified our scheduled hike to a bus/walk tour. Good thing too because the rain changes the sand into a very slippery mud very quickly!

Since they do not have enough funding to do many excavations the wait for the weather to expose fossils. The area is very susceptible to erosion so it doesn’t take long for bones to be exposed! On the tour they let us look for fossils. The fossils were everywhere on the ground. Almost everywhere you looked there was a bone. On the bus they also passed around real dinosaur fossils that we got to touch. It was very very cool, and well worth the trip. They also took us into a building with an almost full skeleton of the original find still in tact. The whole experience was a definite trip highlight!

Click here for photos from the week